Wired docking stations for portable electronic devices typically have only a single physical docking connector to dock one device at a time. The docking station may provide the portable device with power and peripheral functions not provided by the device itself, for example a large(r) screen, high(er) quality speakers, mouse and keyboard.
Wireless docking is known, for example, from WO 2012/117306A1. A wireless docking station enables a wireless secured communication between at least one slave device and a master device.
Wireless docking in a system having a host device and dockee devices may be based on using a Wi-Fi (as described in IEEE802.11) based wireless docking station. The wireless docking station may be a wireless docking host (called WDH, or host) that enables a mobile device (called dockee or dockee device) to access to a set of peripherals locally attached through a wire or wirelessly connected to the host device (such as USB mouse, HDMI display, Bluetooth headset) through a set of general message exchange protocols over a wireless link (e.g. Wi-Fi). A host coupled together with one or more wired or wireless peripherals is called a wireless docking environment.
The wireless docking host may provide information about its presence through a Wi-Fi beacon that dockees can use to select and initiate connections with a chosen host.
Alternatively, Near Field Communication (NFC) tags associated with the host or other out of band means (such as using the communications interface from a wireless power system) may be used to select and initiate a host to dock with.
US2013/0309973 describes a system for persistent wireless docking. When multiple docking environments are available a complex selection must be made. The dockee and the host may exchange messages to identify a selected persistent docking environment in accordance with a unique persistent docking environment ID as assigned by the host.